


Reaper

by Bunney



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-20
Updated: 2013-03-20
Packaged: 2017-12-05 21:10:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/727974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bunney/pseuds/Bunney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an effort to escape her inner demons, Hermione discovers a bit of unfinished business... and crosses a line never meant to be broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaper

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: This short story contains dub-con/non-con elements, references to mental illness, and character death. Much thanks to my groovy beta, UnseenLibrarian!

The dingy little pub was on the outskirts of Liverpool, near the estuary. It was a working class establishment and the woman couldn't have looked more out of place if she'd tried. Silence had fallen abruptly when she stepped through the door, her lithe figure and pretty face catching the attention of every man in the place, both young and old. 

She crossed to the bar and sat down, ordering a drink in a voice too soft for Euan Scabior to hear from his vantage point in a dim corner. Three men at a nearby table – dock workers from the look of them – laughed over their pints, weary eyes torn between watching the football match on the telly and the young woman at the bar.

Scabior signaled the tired barmaid for another pint, then leaned back into the shadows, content to watch the woman. For now.

 

~*~

 

She knew better than to drink where wizards could find her. She was famous, a heroine of a short but violent war, her face far too recognizable to even the most uninformed. More than one _Prophet_ columnist would have loved to dig up dirt on the beloved Hermione Granger, so she kept a low profile whenever she ventured out.

Privacy had become a thing of memory, something to be grasped and hoarded and cherished. Harry had achieved it by taking his new wife and fleeing to the place of his birth, where he hid behind layers of magic and his own mythology. Ron achieved it by fleeing the country altogether. 

While the public was willing to let Harry cloak himself in the threads of legend, and they had little interest in his sidekick, Hermione stood unwillingly in their place. Even the Ministry's lackluster attempts to keep her out of the public eye only made her more of a target. The faster she ran, the quicker the press seemed to find her, with their cameras, and their Quick-Quotes Quills, and their endless litany of invasive, probing questions. 

But here, in small Muggle pubs, in small Muggle towns, Hermione found the anonymity she craved. No one cared who she was, or what she was. Her name meant nothing to them, nor Harry's, nor Ron's, nor Voldemort's. 

When the barman refreshed her drink, she looked up and her smile froze on her lips. With a casualness born of experience, she looked away, but her gaze was drawn back to the mirror behind the bar and the reflection of a man she'd thought dead. 

The war had ended going on six years ago, but he looked the same, as if he were still standing in the Forest of Dean. His hair was longer than she remembered; it was a black rat's nest of braids, and snarls, and knots, with a streak of rusty red framing his thin face. Clothing that might have been fashionable in the Muggle world thirty years ago and a heavy smear of black eyeliner around his shrewd eyes gave him the dissolute look of an aging, but still handsome, rock star.

Hermione watched him in the mirror; his reflection was fragmented by bottles of Glenfiddich and Stolichnaya. She watched him watching her. He was toying with the frayed ends of a familiar scarf - she'd forgotten the muted pink and red plaid she'd left tied around a tree for a reason that escaped her now, but the memory of it was of soft cotton, and dried tears, and girlish perfume. 

She lifted the glass to her lips and he smiled at her, sleek and predatory.

Hermione swallowed the last dregs of her vodka sour and slid off the barstool.

 

~*~

 

He was only steps behind her, his footfall heavy and muffled by the low ground fog that two days' worth of rain had brought, and when he stepped into the dark alleyway behind her, he was just seconds away from being able to reach out and touch her.

She pressed the tip of her wand - not her _real_ one, but the one that had belonged to Bellatrix Lestrange - into the meat beneath his jaw. In the thin light of dusk, she saw his eyes widen fractionally, but the smirk on his lips never fell away.

"Hello, beautiful," he said, echoing the first words he'd ever spoken to her, his raspy voice betraying his working class heritage and a pack a day habit. Memories she still struggled to bury, memories of cold, and of hunger, and of terror, coiled in her gut and made the fine hair on her nape prickle. To hide that instant of uncertainty, she dug the tip of her wand deeper into his skin and he grunted in annoyed discomfort.

"What are you doing here?" Hermione whispered harshly. He laughed.

"Darling, I live in this grand shithole. I think the question remains, why are _you_ here?"

Hermione pushed away from him, but kept her wand trained on his face. "You should be in Azkaban. Or better yet, dead."

He rubbed his jaw where her wand had left a red mark beneath days' old stubble. "I was and now I'm not. What difference does it make to you, witch?" He took a step towards her, driving her deeper into the narrow alleyway, deeper into the murky shadow. 

"You're a criminal. You... you hurt people," Hermione said, faltering once she'd noticed that he was between her and the dubious safety of the empty street beyond. She gave her wand a flick and he gasped. A welt flared on the back of his hand.

"Back away from me. Now!" she said, although she was the one who backed away.

He took her measure, his eyes sliding over her breasts and lower still with a kind of arrogant familiarity. "I think I like you, darling," he said with a slow, lazy smile. He raised his hand, the one she'd jinxed, and sucked on the reddened flesh, his gaze never leaving hers.

Hermione lifted her chin, unable to hide her disgust. "Well, I don't like you. Now, do as I say and back off!"

He ignored her, taking a step and then another until Hermione was crowded back against the mossy wall. He reached out and touched her cheek with just the tips of his fingers. Hermione's wand hand shook as an unexpected shiver of revulsion made her breath catch in her throat.

"No, I don't think so. Why are you here, Hermione Granger? Oh, yes, I remember you." He was so close that she could smell his skin, an earthy, sweaty scent that was not entirely unpleasant. 

He smelled dangerous. 

"None of your business!"

But he knew. He knew the minute he looked into her eyes and saw the trapped look in them that had nothing to do with him or with the squalid alleyway in which they were faced off. 

He smiled. "You can't escape them, can you? They follow you and they take your picture and you can't even go to market with your hair dirty and wearing mismatched socks without someone snapping your picture and calling you the washed-up, cast-off whore of Harry Potter."

In the next moment, he staggered back, his cheek burning red from the force of her blow. Before Hermione could slip past him, he was on her, his lean body surprisingly strong. Looping one arm around her waist, he grabbed her wrist and forced her wand down, red sparks showering from the tip to splash in the dank puddle at their feet. He pushed her against the wall, and then his mouth was on hers, his tongue pushing past her lips and her teeth and stealing her outraged scream.

With her free hand, Hermione pushed at his shoulder, trying to turn her head away, but it was wrong... wrong wrong _wrong_... and at some point her pushing became pulling and she moaned into his mouth.

He pulled back, his eyes searching her flushed face and swollen lips. "Are you playing me?" he asked. "Are you one of those women who spread their legs for a man, then scream rape?"

Hermione shook her head. "Would it stop you if I was?"

He grinned. "Why are you here, Hermione Granger?"

The truth was buried too deep, so the lie tumbled easily to her lips. 

"For something different."

 

~*~

 

He lived nearby, on the top storey of a six-floor walk-up. He kept Hermione tucked under one arm as he jammed a key into the lock, the door swinging open into his tiny flat.

Before Hermione could take in the tatty curtains and sagging sofa, he had her pressed against the door, his mouth once more ravaging hers with a hunger that shocked her. 

Ron had always treated her with hesitant awe; his touch was too light, too sweet, too brotherly to arouse her. After she and Ron had decided that continuing their friendship was more important than muddling through a near-incestuous train wreck, Hermione had dated a wizard from Magical Games and Sports a few years her senior, but again, his touch was deferential, gentle and soothing, and ultimately, it just made Hermione's skin crawl.

She wasn't sure what it was exactly that she craved, although she thought maybe her one date with Cormac McLaggen in sixth year came closest to answering that question. And she knew better than to let an ill-conceived night with Draco Malfoy factor into it at all. No sense in revisiting _that_ disaster, even if it had resulted in bruised thighs, bite marks around her nipples, an orgasm like a fucking freight train, and a giddy smile that wouldn't go away for a month. 

Scabior (that was his name, Hermione remembered now) was pulling at the zipper on her dress, so she arched her back to give him room to work his hand between her and the door. He grunted in approval as he covered her mouth again, his unshaven skin making hers burn. His fingers, blunt and hard, traced the curve of her spine and her nipples hardened in response. 

She pushed him away.

The distrust flared in his eyes – he still didn't believe she wasn't playing him for a fool – but when Hermione reached around to tug the zipper the rest of the way down her back and let the dress puddle at her feet, lust blotted out the doubt.

"Look at you, darling, all prim on the outside and such a dirty whore beneath it all," he whispered as he fingered the black lace edge of her brassiere, the pad of his thumb slipping just underneath it to stroke her skin. "If they knew what you were really like, underneath the cashmere and tweed, you'd never find a moment's peace."

Hermione stepped out of the pool of fabric and walked away from him, into the cramped lounge. It was almost completely dark, but for the neon glare from the fast food restaurant across the street shining through the grimy window. On closer inspection, she could see all the accoutrements of a Muggle life: an old telly in the corner; the hum of a refrigerator in the kitchen; pizza boxes stacked on the table, an empty bottle of Guinness perched on top.

"You live like a Muggle," she said, looking over her shoulder at Scabior. He had closed and locked the door, and was stripping off his battered leather coat and the scarf that had once been hers. He shrugged.

"Part of my 'rehabilitation', as the Ministry put it. Took my wand, told me not to do magic. I hadn't much choice." 

Hermione smiled; it felt strange on her face, as spiteful as Malfoy had done as he fucked her. It felt mean and _she_ felt mean. "Castrated you, did they? Taking a man's wand from him... isn't that as good as taking your prick?"

Scabior narrowed his eyes, but he was shrewder than she'd given him credit for. "Quite a mouth on you, Hermione. Do you know how to use it?"

She did. As she knelt in front of Scabior, he pulled off his shirt and tossed it towards the sofa, where it fell just short of the arm and landed on the floor instead. He touched her cheek, with the same kind of tentativeness that Hermione had so despised in Ron. She jerked her head back and glared up at him.

"No."

"No?"

"I'm not a doll. Don't touch me like one."

The predatory smile was back. His hand flashed out and grabbed a handful of her thick curls; he pulled her head back until she could see only his face and the ceiling above. The quivery rush of sensation in her belly blazed hot and made her groan aloud.

"Then, you're wasting time, witch. Show me what you can do with that nasty tongue of yours."

Hermione unbuckled his belt, and then dragged down the zip on his jeans. When she encountered the bare skin of his abdomen, she looked up at him. With a sharp tug, she pulled his jeans just past his arse and his cock swayed against her cheek, already hard. Hermione wrapped her fingers around him, testing his girth, rubbing the engorged head back and forth over her lips before swirling her tongue around the raised ridge exposed by his retracting foreskin.

Keeping her eyes on his, Hermione took him between her lips, one hand sliding around to cup his arse and the other stroking his shaft in rhythm with the movement of her mouth. 

He tugged at the clip holding her hair back until the clasp broke and the heavy mass fell around her shoulders; he dug both hands through it to hold her firm. His mouth had fallen open, the tip of his tongue touching the fleshy curve of his upper lip, his stare unblinking and greedy as he watched her suck his cock. 

"Enough," he finally said, pulling her head back and hissing as her mouth slid off of him with a scrape of her teeth. Hermione stood and Scabior dragged her against his chest, his lips on hers as he deftly maneuvered her to the bedroom. He pushed her onto the bed, so roughly she bounced on the lumpy mattress, then made quick work of the rest of his clothing. 

Hermione scooted into the center of the bed, toeing off her heels and unsnapping her brassiere and tossing it to the floor. A sick feeling had settled into the pit of her stomach, but she'd see this through. If she was truthful to herself, she was curious about this man, wanted to feel him between her legs, using her and making her as dirty as she felt inside, to see if he could make her feel as filthy as Malfoy had.

Fucking Malfoy had been a revelation to her, proof of just how far she would go to confront her own demons. 

Hooking her thumbs in her knickers, she pulled them off and threw them at Scabior, hitting him in the face with the lacy fabric. He caught them in his hand and pressed the crotch to his nose. He grinned at her as she fell back on the bed, spreading her legs wide.

"You still smell delicious, witch," he murmured as he dropped his hand to his cock and rubbed himself with her knickers. "I want your smell all over me."

"Then do it," Hermione snarled, ruthlessly shoving down the part of her that was screaming to run from this filthy little flat and the frightening man looming over her.

He was on her then, covering her with his body, his rough hands pushing her thighs further apart. Hermione tipped her hips up, brought her knees higher, and looked between their bodies to watch as Scabior pushed inside her. She keened deep in her throat as he filled her with a single, hard thrust that stretched her open to the point of pain. 

Scabior braced his hands on either side of her head, his eyes boring into hers as he fucked her relentlessly, with a simmering cruelty that both terrified her and excited her beyond all reason. Hermione gripped his arms, holding on as the pounding of his hips threatened to push her into the headboard thumping against the wall. 

"Fuck, woman... fucking whore," Scabior grunted as he rutted, his long hair obscuring all but his twisted mouth, which continued to spew a litany of foul, abusive words that brought tears of humiliation to Hermione's eyes even as she wrapped her legs around his waist and thrust her hips up to meet his with a kind of mindless desperation.

Scabior grasped her wrists and pinned them above her head, shifting atop her to gain more leverage. He was hurting her now, his cock bottoming out inside her with each manic thrust. The knot of pleasure that was building inside her tightened, contracted, and Hermione closed her eyes, tears leaking from the corners, as that knot finally broke and she screamed at the force of her orgasm.

Scabior's mouth covered hers, muffling the sound of her shriek with his tongue. He tasted sour, like cheap ale and cheaper cigarettes, but she sucked on his tongue anyway, curling her own into the depths of his mouth and over his palate.

He leered down at her. "Should've had you then... such a beautiful little girl... I could smell the innocence on you," he whispered as he let go of one of her hands to cup her breast. "I wondered how tight you'd be, how your sweet, young cunt would feel around my prick."

His thumb rubbed over her nipple, raising it to a hard peak, then he dipped his head to suck it into his mouth, his teeth scraping over the tender flesh. 

He slowed inside her, and then pulled out completely. "Turn over and get on your hands and knees," he ordered, grasping his cock in one hand and stroking himself.

She rolled over and pressed her face into the pillow, as Scabior knelt behind her. His fingers curled around her hips, digging into her as he slammed back inside her. With her face hidden from view, Hermione allowed the tears to come, the sound of her sobs drowned out by the sound of bedsprings and skin slapping skin. She dug her fingers into the dirty sheets and thrust back against him, hating herself for the filthy lust that was starting to roar back to life with each plunge of his cock inside her.

She turned her head to one side when she started to feel like she was going to suffocate against the stinking pillow, but her eyes fell on the mirror above a cheap wooden dresser, meeting his in the glass as he watched her. He was grinning, his teeth white in the deepening gloom.

"Not such a proper witch now, are you, Hermione? You like being treated like a filthy Mudblood whore, don't you?" he grunted as he continued to thrust. Hermione bit her lip as pain shivered through her; her thighs trembled with the stress of being spread so wide and she wondered if she'd even have the strength to walk out of here when he was done.

"Shut your m-mouth, you bas-bastard," she snarled. "Just get it done, already!"

Scabior slowed, then stopped altogether, although he didn't leave her body. He stroked the line of her spine as she bowed beneath his touch. She was clenching around him in an effort to coax him into movement. He moved his hips, pulling out, then sliding back inside with excruciating slowness. Reaching down, he pressed his fingers into the cleft of her arse, pulling her cheeks apart to reveal the pucker of her anus. He rubbed his thumb over it and Hermione nearly came undone when he pressed the tip inside.

"Stop! Don't... not there," she whispered, as he resumed fucking her, the slick sound of their joining reaching her ears.

Scabior pulled his thumb from her arse and brought it to his mouth. "Has anyone had you there, love? Which one of your nameless, faceless men has fucked your arse?"

"Shut up!" she screamed, although the sound was muffled by the pillow she pressed against her mouth. 

Scabior pulled out of her abruptly. He climbed off the bed and left Hermione gasping and still aching for another release. She heard him open a drawer, then slam it again. Lowering herself to the bed, Hermione closing her eyes. She swallowed, but the lump in her throat threatened to choke her.

She felt the dip of the mattress as Scabior joined her again, his body an unwelcome pressure against her back. His cock nudged her thigh, still hard, still wet from being inside her. She hated the yearning that made her shamelessly spread her legs, begging silently for his touch.

But when it came, it was the slick, cold smear against her arse that cut through the haze of Hermione's lust, the feel of his hard, blunt fingers pressing into her, stretching her, that brought the reality of what she was doing crashing down around her. 

"No... no, stop," she cried, struggling against his touch, but Scabior pushed her down, one hand pressing against the small of her back as he swung his body between her legs. Hermione heaved herself up onto her arms, looking over her shoulder at him. 

"Don't worry, beautiful, I'll have you begging for it in no time," he said as he reached between her legs again, his finger brushing over her clit and sending awful, pleasurable little tremors through her.

"I don't want to do this..." she whispered, but she tilted her hips up as he brought his slick fingers up to her arse, spreading her cheeks wide as he pressed the head of his cock against her anus. "Please... please... oh God..."

Scabior's laugh was dark and unforgiving as he pushed into her with little preamble. She whined deep in her throat as an inexorable ache spread through her, her body fighting against the unnatural invasion. 

But she couldn't hide from the pleasure that followed, as he pushed as deep as her body would allow. She trembled as he pulled slowly out, then thrust back in, wrenching a scream from her throat.

Hermione had never hated herself as much as she did at that moment. She lost the ability to differentiate between pain and pleasure – they coalesced into one violent storm that blocked out all thought except to offer herself up to him, to let this horrible man who had nearly got her killed as a girl fuck her in the most degrading way and, worse yet, to _enjoy_ it.

Something snapped inside of her.

"Yes, yes, do it, do it harder, fuck me harder," she cried, trying to inject the right amount of desire into her voice. It was false, but he was so lost in his own lust that he took it at face value. His rough hands bruised her as he speeded up and Hermione had to press her fist against her mouth to keep from screaming. But at last, at long last, he jerked out of her and she felt the hot splatter of semen on her back.

Scabior fell back onto the bed, his hand slapping hard on her arse. "If I'd known what a spectacular fuck you were going to be, love, I'd have had you a dozen times before taking you to the Malfoys that night."

Hermione turned and looked down at him. He looked nothing like what she had previously thought – he was unclean, with his greasy hair and bloodshot eyes, any good looks he might've possessed long gone after a lifetime of alcohol and a stint in Azkaban.

And she had let this man touch her, let him inside her. Hermione swallowed as her stomach threatened to empty itself. With a faint smile, she slid off the bed and walked into the lounge, biting back a cry as her aching body protested every movement.

"Where're you going, love? Come back... I'll be ready for another go in a minute or two," Scabior called after her, too exhausted to bother following her.

"Be right back... I need something from my bag," she called back to him, as she reached down for what she was seeking. The scarf didn't feel the same as it had; it was stiff with grime and dried sweat and God knew what else, but she clutched it in her hands as she walked back into the darkened bedroom.

He had lit a cigarette; the tip of it glowed red in the darkness. Hermione slid back onto the bed beside him, and straddled his lap. Scabior laughed quietly, his hands sliding down to caress her thighs. "Ready for it again, are you, love? You are a nasty little slag and I've not enjoyed anyone quite as much as I've enjoyed fucking you."

Hermione took the cigarette from between his lips and set it in the ashtray on the bedside table. She kissed him, slipping her tongue between his lips, and soon he was thoroughly distracted, his hands reaching up to cup her bare breasts.

Hermione wrapped the scarf around his neck, looping the ends around her fists and pulling them taut.

She closed her eyes so she didn't have to see the realization in his eyes as she pulled tighter, tighter, until his eyes bugged out and his hands left her breasts to claw at her arms, then her face.

She pulled the ends tighter still, until she knew the fabric of the scarf was tearing at his skin, abrading the flesh through the layer of dirt and beard. He was bucking violently underneath her, his fists beating bruises into her shoulders and chest. Idly, she thought how sore she would be by morning. 

He was making a high-pitched kind of squeal that set Hermione's teeth on edge. With a final burst of strength, she yanked the scarf as tight as she could and with a rattling sigh, Scabior fell limp at last.

Hermione put her hand against his chest, then her ear. He was dead.

She climbed off the bed and looked down at his shadowy form as he slumped over, his head thumping against the bedside table. With a suddenness that distantly shocked her, nausea made her reel towards the bathroom, but she ended up vomiting more on herself than into the dirty toilet. 

As she slumped over the bowl, the tears came and she sobbed.

 

~*~

 

There wasn't a proper obituary, as Euan Scabior hadn't done a single noteworthy deed in his life, so the only thing that marked his passing was a short announcement in the column devoted to former Death Eater activity. There had been no one to claim the remains and the barmaid from the pub had identified his body with the same apathy with which she served ale to the dockworkers twelve hours a day. The police had shown no interest in solving the murder of a man no one seemed to care was dead.

Euan Scabior was an easily forgotten footnote to a war long over.

Hermione folded the _Prophet_ and tossed it in the bin. 

She needed to get out of her flat before she went mad.

 

~fin~


End file.
